Nhc Healthcare, Ft Sanders

On top of being a first rate nursing home overall, this facility performed well in our inspections category, where it received an A+. Very few places performed as well in this area. We weigh several aspects of a nursing home's inspection report in calculating our inspection ratings. One critical factor is health deficiencies. You should keep in mind that the severity of deficiencies is usually more important than the quantity of deficiencies, as some end up being quite insignificant. While this place had some minor dings on its inspection report, it had zero severe deficiencies. Severe deficiencies are labeled as categories G through L. This tells you that the government inspectors did not deem any of the deficiencies on this facility's report to pose an imminent threat to patient safety or health. Finally, this facility had no substantiated complaints this year from residents, which is an excellent sign.

This facility also was given a top-shelf short-term care score. Indeed, this is this nursing home's second strongest category grade. In that category, we awarded this facility a grade of A-. In determining these short-term care grades, we look at the nursing home's skilled nursing services, such as those performed by registered nurses, speech therapists, physical therapists and other types of therapists. Our goal is to devise a tool for sizing up the rehabilitation services of various nursing homes. Fortunately, it looks like this nursing home has registered nurses on staff. Not every nursing home employs these skilled professionals. On the other hand, based on the data this nursing home provided, they do not appear to employ physical therapists. Lastly, we assessed the number of patients who ultimately were able to return home from this facility. We found that 5.9 percent of this facility's residents returned home.

Moving on our third area, this facility was awarded a strong long-term care score. In fact, we gave it a grade of A- in that area. When facilities receive this kind of score in this category it is typically a good sign for resident care and suggests that the place is well-staffed with nurses and aids. After looking at the amount of care provided by nurses and other staff, we next considered the nursing home's vaccination statistics. This facility vaccinated 95.053764 percent of its patients against pneumonia. Vaccines are critical to keeping patients healthy. Clearly, this nursing home is doing something right in this area as it was able to keep its residents out of the hospital. It had only 0.01 hospitalizations per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low figure.

In the final area, this nursing home also was awarded an excellent nursing grade, with a grade of A-. This wrapped up a straight A report card. Our nursing grade is primarily based on the nursing home's nurse staffing. This particular nursing home provided 0.4 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Finally, our nursing grades also factor in quality-based assessments, such as avoiding major falls. This nursing home performed well in this area. Avoiding major falls is typically a good indicator that a facility has reliable quality controls in place. Major falls can frequently be prevented if more nurses aids and better safety protocols are in place.